Materials

Miniature Painting

Islamic miniature painting is generally understood to mean small paintings that are or once were part of a manuscript, used as a frontispiece or an illustration for a text. Drawings and individual paintings have, however, also been preserved. They were either sketches or were intended to be placed as independent works of art in an album.

The miniatures usually had a paper base, but cardboard and in rare cases cotton or silk cloth were also used. The brilliant colors are usually opaque.

The oldest preserved miniature paintings were made in around the year 1000, but not until around 1200 were they found in larger numbers. Islamic miniature painting is often categorized rather summarily into four regional schools: the Arab, the Persian, the Indian, and the Ottoman Turkish.

Partly colored drawing pasted on an album leaf. “A Prince with Courtiers in a Landscape”. Attributed to Muhammad Qasim

Iran, Isfahan; c. 1650
Drawing: 22.9 × 13 cm

A prince is seated under a tree, surrounded by a number of elderly courtiers, two young women making music, and a flock of young pages. On the other side of a little brook sits an old man with an open book that reads, “O God, forgive those with an obedient heart” – perhaps a slightly bitter comment on the company’s drinking.

The prince is most probably Shah Abbas II (1642-1666), one of Abbas the Great’s most competent successors although he, like many of his companions, had a hankering for alcohol.

This beautiful drawing, with the figures’ heavy, slightly melancholy eyelids, was undoubtedly made by Muhammad Qasim.